Start Now, You’ll Never Be Ready

One of the biggest mistakes people make in whatever they are choosing to do is that they wait for the perfect time. Whether having kids (been there), changing jobs, starting the new side hustle (been there too), eating healthier and working out (can’t be just me?!), people wait until they perceive the time is right. By whatever metrics you have created in your head that you’ll be ready at that time; be it income, housing situation, time of the year or amount of content, the situation will never be perfect. Just start. This blog is the perfect example of that. As of writing this I have 4 blog posts and have done nothing to promote it at this point, but I started and I’ll figure it out along the way. My ultimate goal is to start a side business doing speaking engagements, and I figured a blog would be a good space to develop and work on some content, so here I am.

How many times have you or someone you know made a New Years resolution? Most of the statistics I have seen out the success rates of American’s resolutions between 8-10%. Now there are probably a few reasons for those failures but one that makes a ton of sense for me is this: they’re waiting until January 1 to start. If you know you need to lose weight, start reading, be more social, or whatever it is you’ve assessed and determined you need to do better, why in the world are you waiting to start? If you put something off for weeks or months all you’re doing is telling your brain that this is down thing not important enough to start now. So the moment it gets hard what do you think you’re gonna do? Most of us will fold like a beach chair, because if we could wait months to start once we “decided” to change, then we can stop the second it’s inconvenient to push through.

People get it in their head that that’ll start when the time is perfect, or their idea or content is perfect. They wait and they wait and what happens? They never start. And why do they never start? Well let’s think about this, who or what do you know that’s perfect? Anything? Anyone? Hello? Bueller? Exactly. Nobody and nothing is perfect. Waiting until the timing is perfect is an excuse you give yourself so you don’t have to start; because you know deep down it will never be perfect. “Practice makes perfect” is one of the worst quotes I can think of. What practice actually makes is improvement. Here’s another one, “Good things come to those who wait.” When has that ever happened? Good things actually come to those who work hard and earn it.

Listen, I am someone who thinks rationally and weighs all my decisions carefully. I’m not telling you to not think through what you want to do and just act. But far too often people have these great ambitions and ideas and just wait and wait because they’re scared to change or don’t want to do the work. Don’t lie to yourself and say it’ll be easier to do it when x, y or z. If you want it bad enough then just game plan and start, you can figure out all the rest of the details along the way. These blog posts are the first way for me to organize my thoughts and ideas about what I’d soon like to talk about as a professional speaker. I don’t have all the details figured out yet, but I will. Now at least I have some momentum in getting towards where I want to be. I hope you’ll join me and get started on your road.